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Santa Cruz heads to Silicon Valley Joint Venture State of the Valley

Eric — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 05:21:00 +0000

This past Friday the Project for Innovation and Entrepreneurship headed to San Jose to the Silicon Valley Joint Venture State of the Valley Town Hall. The main keynote speaker was Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class. We highly suggest reading this book. In it, Florida details how the future of the [...]

Consume in the good way

Eric — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 04:59:53 +0000

“Not all of them were smart, not all of them were funny, not all of them were cool…actually only a few of them were. But what they all had in common was that they consumed massive amount of information.” And so was the main point of this week’s speaker Ryan Coonerty. In the quote, in case your [...]

Perseverance – A Necessary Trait

Eric — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 04:25:04 +0000

This past Friday Michael Meara came to speak with our group about succeding after colllege. Michael Meara is a Certified Financial Planner and Registered Investment Advisor who provides fee-only financial planning and investment management services for small business owners and individuals. Michael is also a successful entrepreneur, small business advocate, advisor and radio personality. He [...]

Winter Quarter Week 2- Val Cole iTunes

Eric — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 07:00:07 +0000

Val Cole Director of Worldwide Sales and Marketing for iTunes Gift Cards came in the second week of Winter quarter to the PIE. With Apple slated to make a major announcement this Wednesday, we were all as excited as the entire blogosphere to hear about his experiences working at a large, innovative company such as [...]

Winter quarter kickoff-Shai Goldman and VC firms

Eric — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 22:53:22 +0000

We’ve started another crazy quarter with startups, technology, and bright, ambitious students. To kick off this undoubtedly crazy, yet ultimately fulfilling quarter, Shai Goldman came in to speak of his experiences at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). Shai is a director at SVB capital, which according to their website “SVB Financial Group has worked hand in [...]

Week 9: The College Transition and Snowboard Connection

Eric — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:01:53 +0000

Jeff Tavangar, the CEO and Managing Director of The Armada Group joined our student group for the last speaker of our weekly speaker series. Over the course of the past 9 weeks we have learned about a wide range of subjects, from Business Startup, Financing, Options, Social media and contracts (just read all our blog [...]

Week 8: Entrepreneur tips in 12 seconds

Eric — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:27:28 +0000

Today we had Sol Lipman, founder and CEO of 12seconds.tv come in and speak to our group. He is really able to relate to our students not just because he is interested in starting something and making a difference, but also because he is a UCSC alumni. Check out this article written about him by [...]

Week 7: Lessons from Technology PR

Eric — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:38:09 +0000

I had the pleasure of being an intern at a Santa Cruz PR firm a few years ago with then senior account manager Mike Kelly, who came in as our seventh speaker of this quarter. I always knew him as a master of the phones who understood the technology industry and the major players in [...]

Week 6: Don’t Pay $1.20 for a Dollar, Pay 60 cents

Eric — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:00:22 +0000

The Patel family came to the United States from India in the 1940s. In their home country they were all professionals – doctor’s and laywers, but their professions couldn’t help them in their new world. They came to America with nothing but their ambition, hope and their family looking to start a new life. When [...]

Week 5: Advice for Signing on the Dotted Line

Eric — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:29:20 +0000

For our week five speaker series, Bill Richter came in to speak of our group of interns about a subject we have all (assuming you’re over 18) faced. He came to speak to us about important things to know about contracts and how we often underestimate the importance of those neat pen marks we call [...]

Week 4: When to Stay and When to Go

Eric — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:44:12 +0000

Mike Gardner, VP of products of Ketera came in to speak this last Friday at the PIE. He used his story of Peach Pit Press to illustrate four main points of advice for the ambitious student audience.

Week 3: Options? Options!

Peter — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:14:44 +0000

This past Friday, Ian Stock of EntrepreLaw came into speak at the Project for Innovation and Entrepreneurship about his experiences and provided insight to our young entrepreneurs about startups. He started off by describing the winding and interesting road to founding his own Law office. His credentials are amazing but his journey is more so; [...]

Week 2: Free Help from the SBDC

Peter — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 23:06:38 +0000

Teresa Thomae came in this morning to talk about all the resources that her center can offer to PIE students. Here’s a quick rundown. Free small business assistance is available through the Central Coast Small Business Development Center at Cabrillo College. Whether you’re just starting out or have been in business for several years, the Central [...]

Week 1: CoWorking, UCSC and You

Peter — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:00:21 +0000

Jeremy came in and let everyone know that his mission at NextSpace is to catalyze local talent, local ideas, and local capital in Santa Cruz to create products, services, and solutions for the global marketplace. In his own words, UCSC is a hugely important repository of talent and ideas and, indirectly, capital is right in our [...]

Fall Quarter Kickoff: Progress Report

Eric — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:24:21 +0000

The following 16 internships have been finalized or are in process. Eric and I are still aiming to enroll 20-24 total in the program. Thanks to Rebecca Brooks, James Davis, Mary Flannery, Charlie McDowell and Nannette O’Connor for all their help in securing academic credit / clearance for all our interns.